


i used my arsenal of defunct verbs & broke into a library of second chances

by vergule



Category: Charmed (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-09
Updated: 2019-12-09
Packaged: 2021-02-26 01:53:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21725569
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vergule/pseuds/vergule
Summary: mel is taken in by jada, enraptured by the column of her throat and the cadence of her eyes and the sweetness of her lips. a character study in vignettes.
Relationships: Jada Shields/Mel Vera
Comments: 3
Kudos: 22





	i used my arsenal of defunct verbs & broke into a library of second chances

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> i will populate this tag myself if i have to.

Mel likes bartending the same way she likes to mix potions. Drink recipes are precise and exact. It’s a chemistry and an art. She pumps out cosmopolitans and measures out tap beers until the glasses are full and the head eclipses the top of each pint glass. The patrons love that, tip her a little extra. She doesn’t like it more than teaching, but she likes it just fine. She can go back to teaching, and just teaching, after she submits her thesis. _When_ , not if, she submits her thesis.

The Haunt was a pizzeria before it was a bar. She runs her fingers over the peeling wallpaper when she reaches under the cupboards for the power outlet. The plug zaps her fingers when she moves to charge her laptop, and she pulls them away, hissing and then sucking them into her mouth. It shocks her lips and they taste like ozone.

She doesn't count hours on her shift usually but the thesis weighs on her mind and she can hear the tick of the clock every time she stares her screen down. It’s usually a lot easier to work at the Haunt, where the arcane doesn't follow her through the door, and she doesn't have to think about how she feels about her new sister or her old one, or her mom who died leaving her alone. Or Niko, who didn't have a choice but to leave. The blank pages document blinks back at her angrily.

She wishes she could call Mom and ask for help. She envisions herself standing in front of a classroom the way mom used to, completely authoritatively. In control, she would walk across the room with her back straight and give each student a measured look as she contemplated their responses. Mom would know what to do, here. She would know how exactly how to start on intersectional feminism, maybe give Mel a book or two, or some pointers. The strange part is, Mel remembers doing all the groundwork for this before erasing Niko from her life but it’s like that one decision drew a line across the sheet of paper of her life and now all the references are mixed up.

Mel grew up without a Dad and she knows how to change lightbulbs and the oil in cars and unclog a sink with a snake and buy Maggie gifts, but she doesn’t know how to _be_ a mom. And she doesn’t want to be Maggie’s mom. Maggie’s classes – she doesn’t want to make that decision. She has spent years being the shoulder Maggie cries on when she misses Dad or feels abandoned, or when Mom is being unreasonable or when a boy is being cruel and she already feels like she’s drowning with this Niko situation. Feels like she’s being unreasonable to want a little more support from her sister who is supposed to be kind, empathetic. Thoughtful. She doesn’t know how either of them is going to make it through the semester.

She doesn’t think about it. She’ll just call Maggie and pretend she doesn’t feel bitter that she’s expected to nag Maggie and be the bad guy in this situation. It’ll be fine. It’s fine. 

.

The pain down Mel’s bicep brings clarity. The demon at the Haunt seemed familiar. How many times had she seen that face somewhere out of the corner of her eye, in her subconscious. How many people could be monitoring her now and waiting for her to slip up in the future?

She traces the pattern with a finger in the shower, over and over again with the weblike pattern on Mom’s dead and lifeless body in front of her eyes. She sees it now. The shower stops for a moment while she fixates on the single droplet running straight down the center. She’ll keep it, she decides. Like a tattoo. Like a tribute. A reminder.

.

Mel knows what they’ll say. She anticipates, at least, that they’ll call her jaded and delusional. She hasn’t actually seen the Elders do much wrong yet, though she feels it in her gut every time she so much as looks at Charity’s face and Jada…there’s something about the way Jada spoke like she personally knew the Elders or…the way she looked when she said the word abomination.

She thinks about how Harry said that the S’Arcana were giving people false hope and wonders why people needed hope if the Elders were the benevolent force they claimed to be. Has no context for whether or not half-witch whitelighters are common because they haven’t met any other witches, like the Elders are trying to keep them away from the magical world.

It makes sense. It fits together like pieces of a puzzle. Jada had something to do with Mom’s death but when she talks to Jada she can’t sense even a little bit of evil. She’ll do her own research, she decides. She’ll figure it out for herself.

.

Mel knows Jada’s getting under her skin but she can’t help it. She can’t figure out why the elders would want her to join the S’arcana, or why Charity reacted so poorly when she had said Fiona’s name. She recites the Desenmascarar spell in her head with each step to the parlor, and reads it off the piece of paper again just to be sure. Maggie doesn’t speak Spanish, neither does Macy, so she’ll have to be the one to read it in the future. She wonders if she’ll start to forget now that mom isn’t around to speak to her in Spanish anymore.

When she wakes up, Jada is there, staring at her with a calm voice and calm eyes. Calm hands. Mel sees the way she lurches forward for a split-second before Mel wakes and she sees…something in Jada’s eyes that makes her feel excited, even though she doesn’t want to admit it to herself. She doesn’t admit it to herself. She goes home and takes another ice-cold shower, and tries not to think too much. She thinks of Jada when she traces the scar and not mom. To remind her why she has to stay on her guard. With everyone.

.

Mel stitches herself together over and over again during the holiday. It’s the hardest when she even smells mom’s coquito. She makes more of it than she ever has and doesn’t dare to drink it. She’s glad it’s almost gone, and once she’s done making it obsessively, she doesn’t make more. Maggie doesn’t even miss mom. She thinks about how she can’t protect Maggie anymore and tries not to think about how Maggie doesn’t want to be protected. She doesn’t think about how Macy’s presence is like a weight over the veneer of calm in the house, and everything seems uneasy. How the balance has shifted because she isn’t the eldest sister anymore and she doesn’t know what to do.

She curls her hands into fists until her fingernails press half-moons into her palms. When she leaves, Harry tells her she’s walking into a trap. Maggie and Macy are joking around in the kitchen and she walks out of the house alone. She won’t look back, she resolves. She won’t.

.

Siblinghood is a covenant of its own sort and the hierarchy is out of sorts. If it’s the oldest sibling’s job to love and protect, Macy doesn’t want to take it, so Mel is lost and alone, in between. The S’Arcana initiation is less work than a real sisterhood, at least. She tries not to be unnerved by the crows and thinks about how Jada may have killed her mother. Harry is the one to greet her at the door and the house doesn’t feel safe anymore or even like home when she realizes no one else missed her presence.

She and Maggie fight. Again. Maggie doesn’t ask if she thinks the S’Arcana killed Mom, and Mel doesn’t offer the information. She thinks about the way Jada moved that when they chased her down, quick as lightning, armed to evade and not injure. If she wanted to hurt them, she could have done it that night…so why didn’t she?

Jada killed Mom, she repeats to herself in her head, trying to find evil in Jada where she only sees distrust and discomfort.

.

When Dad left, Mel locked away a part of herself because she could never let someone have that kind of emotional victory over her again. Mel has seen men walk over her mother and now Maggie and she resigns herself to watching it over and over again.

She excuses herself to the kitchen more than once and pretends to tidy up to kill time, swallowing down her feelings over and over again until they’re barely a presence against the backs of her eyelids anymore.

.

Jada has steady hands. As a tattoo artist should, Mel notes faintly. That’s the first thing Mel notices when she stares at the neat cuticles covered with black polish. Jada’s hands are lax but her knuckles are white. Mel traces the purple pattern of Jada’s coat with her eyes, watches the curve of Jada’s mouth when she smiles, watches the lightning flit across Jada’s braids as she leaves, and feels the press of Jada’s fingers against her skin long after.

.

Mel was fibbing – just a little – when she told Jada she trusted her the first time, when she delivered the hellflame directly into Jada’s hands. Jada tells Mel that the crows came to the house for protection the night Mom died and she believes that, at least. But this is when she decides to be sure about it. Jada kisses her, and she’s sure, she’s so sure. It takes one touch of Jada’s fingers on her skin to convince her fully and wholeheartedly.

And now… Even after the first time they sleep together, when she leaves in a hurry, Mel catches Jada's reflection in the mirror and sees the wide-eyed, earnest gaze that pools emotion down her spine.

.

It’s this emotion that leads her to spit out the truth about the Elders asking her to lie when she meets Jada. Jada has every chance to catch her in that lie but she doesn’t and that implicit trust – returned - chips cracks in Mel’s emotions bit-by-bit. She catches herself as she starts to talk to Jada about her problems, almost apologizes because she expects to be shot down, to be told she’s acting up, as usual.

But Jada does nothing of the sort. Jada validates her emotions, sans smirk of victory and shy of pretense. Mel always braces herself against emotional conversations but talking to Jada is too easy. It’s too easy, she decides, and takes the moment while Jada walks over toward the creep to catch her breath.

It was just relief, she decides. To be able to talk to someone, now that mom and Niko were gone.

_“You’re only half.”_ Macy’s words echo in her mind.

Just relief, and nothing more.

But Jada is beautiful when she smiles, and even more beautiful when she’s apologetic. Even more beautiful when she grins in satisfaction at bringing a sexual predator to justice. Mel wants to kiss her, then, even more than when she sees empathy and respect in Jada’s eyes, but the moment passes and she stays silent and contemplative on the trip home.

_“The people that I like.”_ Mel had said when they first met today. _“Like you.”_

.

The conversation with Niko rattles Mel to the core. For some reason, she finds Jada again that night. Jada is open, honest. It makes Mel want to forget.

Mel remembers how she’d peeled the jacket off of Jada’s body the night before. She doesn’t want to go home just to feel excluded and listen to sounds of laughter coming from Macy’s (mom’s) room. She appeases herself by peeling the purple-accented coat off of Jada in the same fashion. Jada is there, present and warm.

She doesn’t falter when Mel asks for it rougher, or harder. When Mel wants to go home, Jada grips her tightly as though she isn’t used to orbing with other people, and avoids Mel’s eyes.

.

Knowing even this much about Jada makes Mel curious to know more, but she bites her tongue. Parents were…complicated sometimes and Mel knew that any amount of information was a huge gesture of trust, to be distributed in bite-sized pieces and reciprocated bit-by-bit. But she wants to know.

She wants to ask Jada why she always tastes like breathmints, or why she lives above the tattoo parlor. Why when she wipes off her eye makeup before they fuck, Jada looks faded, or tired to the bone.

Instead, Mel tries not to look at Jada’s face when she tells Jada about Niko being her ex. Doesn't want to hear the lack of judgement in Jada’s voice.

.

Using the S’Arcana hex makes Mel feel powerful where she’s felt powerless for a long time. She doesn’t tell anyone, but every time she makes a Puerto Rican dish that mom used to make and writing down the recipe step-by-step, she’s been memorizing the Book of Shadows spell-by-spell. She recites the spells to herself in the downtime between scrubbing and stirring pots and tearing up when she smells the spices. She wishes throwing her magic around felt as effortless as Jada makes it look.

.

Mel becomes obsessed slowly. Jada moves gracefully and smiles beautifully. She thinks about Jada’s fingers, about how the cold metal of her piercing feels against Mel’s skin when they kiss. And in bed, Mel digs her knees into Jada’s back and writhes against the strap-on. Mel doesn’t think, can’t think about anything else. When they have sex it’s like nothing she’s felt before. She can’t freeze Jada, even when she freezes everything else, and she likes it. Jada doesn’t go easy on her, ever. She doesn’t think, can’t think about anything except how Jada sends waves of blue static across her body. She likes it so much it’s scary.

When Jada leaves, Mel finds small burn marks in the sheets and thinks that maybe – just maybe – she’s closing her eyes to how dangerous Jada is. Dangerous, but not volatile.

Jada was dangerous but she was loyal and steadfast and something in Mel knew that Jada would never hurt her. Mel likes it. Closes her eyes. It’s three in the morning but she wants to call Jada back. She knows Jada will hear her if she calls Jada’s name, and wonders for a moment if she would come.

.

When Jada does start opening up about her parents, it’s not something that Mel takes lightly. But it’s quickly eclipsed, overshadowed by her feelings about Niko, and she looks back on it later and kicks herself in the shins.

Because she remembers the way it made her feel that Jada had looked to her, _Mel,_ for reassurance. The way it made her feel that Jada thought they were close enough that she was willing to introduce Mel to her parents. Jada makes Mel feel useful in ways that don’t strain at her already heavy conscience and makes her feel wanted in ways she didn’t even feel when she was fighting for Niko back.

Jada reaches for Mel and when she squeezes Mel’s hand, she takes support and gives reassurance in the same action. Mel isn’t used to it – to getting support when she gives it, and it leaves a lump in her throat. Jada’s fingers are soft, and she traces the tattoos along each side of Jada’s knuckles, rubbing soothing balms of promise into her skin. She thinks about it long after.

She’s overwhelmed enough with her own emotions that she doesn’t check in on how it must feel to have hope ripped away like that. She gazes at Jada's arm and thinks about how angry she is that she didn’t have to erase Niko from her life at all and holds her anger at the Elders tightly within her. She doesn’t bring the parents up again.

.

In the moment, she reels from the shock of Niko’s engagement. It hurts but it hurts like pressing on an old bone bruise. It hurts like pressing a sore muscle or wiggling a loose tooth. More than anything, more than hurt or heartbreak, she feels alone in the world, like she doesn’t have anyone to go it with anymore.

.

Mel watches Jada’s neck as Jada sips from the vial and stares at Jada’s lips when she blows. She throws the potion back and Jada watches her through half-lidded eyes. They grin at each other, ecstatic in the magic, feeling excited to be alive. Running through the cold night air like forever could pass and they would stay frozen. Mel thinks it’s the best moment they have together.

She preens at Jada’s praise and compliments. She feels empowered. Wonders why the Elders never introduced her to this world of wonder magic could be, and only ever induced fear. Wondered whether Mom loved or feared her own magic, knowing it would probably kill her. Wondered whether that’s why Mom was an ally of the S’Arcana, if this was her way of reaching out from beyond the grave and telling Mel that it was okay to feel good about her magic, feel like it was a part of her. That there was more to her new life than the Elders would permit.

.

Sometimes Mel finds herself wanting to ask Jada to orb her home from the parlor but she stops herself just in time, her hands already creeping up Jada’s shoulder. She goes in for a kiss and tries to act disinterested. She scurries home and tries not to think about Niko while wearing down her fingernails to the cuticle.

.

Jada doesn't comment on it the next time they fuck. Jada seems to know exactly what Mel wants but she can’t deliver because Jada promises Mel a night of forgetting about past loves, but when Jada sucks Mel's fingers into her mouth and pushes her up against the wall, it re-opens the same wound in an even more painful way because Jada is vulnerable and Mel is falling again. Jada whispers things Mel would find corny if anyone else said them but Jada's bravado in public doesn't translate to how she is when the two of them are alone. Mel thinks that’s part of her charm. She is taken in by Jada, enraptured by the column of her throat and the cadence of her eyes and the sweetness of her lips. Jada leaves her bruised and sore and aching in the best ways and she wants to stay with Jada in this bedroom forever and never ever leave.

.

Orbing with Jada is effortless now, and despite its own best efforts, Ireland _is_ romantic. Hy-Breasal is beautiful and the air is like nothing she’s ever experienced. They orb to a small town in the mainland first and have a nice breakfast. Jada deliberately gives herself a coffee mustache and waggles her eyebrows at Mel. Jada is so young in this moment.

Jada is passionate, and calm, and above all, _funny,_ which is something Mel hadn’t realized she even wanted in a partner. It scares Mel, makes her want...things that would be idealistic. She briefly lets herself imagine another such romantic getaway. Jada has steady hands, an artist’s, so she never falters when she holds onto Mel to orb or when she looks into Mel's eyes. And even better, she never looks at Mel the way Niko-

But she does. But she does look at Mel like that, and Mel’s heart breaks every time.

.

Everything with the S’Arcana unravels so quickly that Mel barely has time to blink. One moment, she’s holding Jada in her arms and marveling at a stone of untold wonders, orbing back to Michigan with her arm in Jada’s and thinking about nothing more than the next time they do it, even with Maggie scolding her for it, and the next – nothing. It is abrupt and it rings hollow.

Mel surprises herself with her own bite toward Jada, but she thinks it has less to do with Jada herself not caring about Harry and more to do with the fact that she can’t seem to bring all the different sides of her life together. She loves Harry, despite her initial apathy. Harry is good, and kind, and all kinds of things that don’t matter when one is a pawn in the middle of the war. Harry cares about Mom’s death, and cares about magic like Macy and Maggie don’t, and cares about Mel. Like Jada is supposed to care about Mel. Mel is quick to temper and quick to cool and she can’t help but think she’s ruined something beyond repair. She knows Jada is empathetic and forgiving and gentle in all other ways but with the Elders, and hopes Jada will understand.

.

Jada kisses her goodbye and it feels both final and temporary. The silence rings hollow in the room. Mel squeezes her eyes shut and tries not to breathe in the acrid air of death, the sour smell of lost promise.

Since she dropped out, she doesn’t think about –isms anymore. She can’t compartmentalize anymore. She needs new coping methods. She needs not to fall in love with Jada…more than anything else, not to _want_ to be.

She does want to be.

**Author's Note:**

> if you enjoyed this and want to talk to me about it, you can find me on tumblr @lelianasface or on twitter @princejaz_!


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